Morning in Venice 5

Behind the brick-bare walls and dark windows, somebody froths the milk for their morning espresso; somebody spreads fig jam on a buttered croissant. The air is still and cool, smelling of the pavement still slick with yesterday’s rain, but today, there is sun. Today, the thin clouds promise to make way for the brilliant blue sky by early afternoon. The canoe bobs like a duck with the canal’s small waves. Beyond this tiny space between these old buildings: an entire world. This is what the artist has done in Morning in Venice: not only captured a moment, but captured a feeling-- captured the possibility each morning swells with. In the stillness, the promise of sun and warmth, fettuccine and wine. In the paint, the promise that we can still know the beauty of a moment, and that some of us have the ability to create this moment in color so that it may be lived, and lived, and lived.